Getting Ready for Adult Life – Methods in upper-secondary education for pupils with Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) Erasmus Project

Project Title

Getting Ready for Adult Life – Methods in upper-secondary education for pupils with Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC)

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Disabilities – special needs; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

Getting ready for adult life
Young persons with autism diagnoses generally have great difficulties to settle as adults – finding jobs, being admitted to universities or taking an active part in community life. Unemployment among young adults with autism is higher than for others, and many have a background as school drop-outs.

Our project aimed to develop methods in upper-secondary education for pupils with Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC), in order to help them get better equipped for adult life. As schools teaching students with autism we must learn what knowledge and social skills our students need in order to enter the labour market and to become as independent as possible. Hence, we need to teach and train them also in these competences.

We planned a number of activities, including four mobilities. Our goal was to develop a toolkit, a programme called “Getting ready for adult life” that can be used over time, by us and by others. We invited local partners in the project too. First we started with two teachers’ mobilities. In October 2018 Rodengymnasiet from Sweden visited Church Lawton School in Great Britain. For Rodengymnasiet it was a fantastic experience meeting peer teachers working with students with autism in the same age group, since we are the only ones in our area doing that. The days were very intense and gave us so much impressions and ideas, from little things like how to train your pupils to be able to take part in big school assemblies, to more structural changes like prolonging the education with one or two years, mixing studies with work practice. In April 2019 Church Lawton School visited Rodengymnasiet. They liked the way we train our students to become independent by using public transportation and by giving them a lot of freedom to try things out on their own. They were also interested in our learning environment and our lightning system that mimic daylight.

In May 2019 the Rodengymnasiet students visited Church Lawton School. For 7 of the 9 pupils taking part, this was the first time ever to fly and to go abroad. For people with autism, a journey is a big challenge, since it takes a lot of energy to settle in a new environment, meet new people and handle unexpected situations. The better prepared you are, the more likely it is that the journey will be manageable and a positive experience. Before the journey we did very detailed preparations, such as visiting the airport and having a look inside an aeroplane, in order to make our pupils as prepared as possible. We had a fantastic trip. We spent time together in the school, visited museums and a monkey forest, and had many great discussions.
In October 2019 the CLS pupils visited Rodengymnasiet. Our pupils this time started to interact more spontaneously, starting to develop friendship between some of them. We did different activities in school, did outdoor education two days, went bowling and had dinner together. Students from both schools were very positive in the evaluation. “This project have given me an enormous confidence boost” said one of them, and this is what we as staff notice as well: We see how our students have grown, gained confidence and developed social skills.

Between and after the mobilities we have been developing the “Getting Ready for Adult Life” programme. We have found that the four main areas Academic studies, Social skills, Integrating community and Health are the most important to focus on in the programme. We have also engaged in dissemination activities, presenting our project in local media and on local and a national conference. The pupils at both schools arranged a workshop presenting the experiences from their journey for the other students. When the Rodengymnasiet students graduated a few weeks ago, one of them said “This project have made me independent and self confident. Now I can use public transportation on my own, make phone calls to authorities and I even managed to enter and stay on my work practice. I can’t find words to tell you how grateful I am”. Another one wrote “The trip to England has sparked a wish to explore other countries and comparing their cultures, customes and environments.”

Expected longer-term benefits
The programme that we have developed will be used by both our schools over time, and can be evaluated and refined annually. We hope other schools will benefit from it too. They can use the concept and the structure, pick the parts that are useful for them, and add their local activities to make their pupils ready for adult life. Another long term benefit for us as staff, is that we now have a partner school with whom we can continue to talk, share experiences and discuss new ideas. For our pupils who took part in this project we are convinced the long term benefit will be that they are indeed better prepared for adult life.

For all involved, a lot good has come out from this project. It has far exceeded all our expectations.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 46285 Eur

Project Coordinator

Rodengymnasiet & Country: SE

Project Partners

• NASAT Church Lawton School